Kerala Govt Files Plea at Kerala HC regarding Privatisation of Thiruvanan-thapuram Airport

Kochi: The Kerala Government filed a fresh plea at Kerala High Court seeking a stay on Union Cabinet’s decision to hand over the operations and supervision of Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to Adani Enterprises Ltd through public-private partnership for 50 years. The High Court likely to hear the petition on Monday.

This move is taken by the government after the all party meeting decided to pass a resolution in the state Assembly to protest against Centre’s plan to privatise  Thiruvananthapuram Airport.

Senior Government Pleader P Narayanan filed the petition for the government and he pointed out that the Supreme Court had set aside the judgment of the High Court dismissing the government’s writ petition against the Airport Authority of India’s (AAI) ‘Request for Proposal’ to grant the right of operation, management and development of the airport to Adani Enterprises Limited.

For  considering the government’s challenge on merit, the apex Court had also sent back the matter to the High Court. However, the union had approved the lease in favour of the Adani Group even though the writ petition was pending.

On observing that the dispute was between the State of Kerala and the Union government. ,  the High Court dismissed the earlier plea filed by the Kerala Government. The High Court also observed that under Article 131 Kerala should have filed the suite in the SC, since  the apex court has the jurisdiction in such Centre-State dispute.

In earlier writ petition, the state Government opposed the attempt of AAI to  lease the airport to someone like Adani Enterprises Limited, who had no experience in managing airports.

The Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan penned a letter to PM Narendra Modi to reconsider the decision on the privatization of Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.